


Six Degrees of Separation

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, Christmas fic, F/M, Prompt Fic, with cameo appearances from a band of AnyEm cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 05:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9108712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: It’s the run-up to Christmas, and Belle is anticipating a quiet celebration with no visitors. She’ll spend the time reading, playing with her cats, and dreading her best friend’s New Year’s Eve party. A lost traveller arriving on her doorstep changes her perception…Written for the Monthly Rumbelling prompt: “Misunderstanding, Candlelight, Cats, Coffee Cups”





	

**Rated:** G

**Prompt:** “Misunderstanding, Candlelight, Cats, Coffee Cups”

**Summary:** It’s the run-up to Christmas, and Belle is anticipating a quiet celebration with no visitors. She’ll spend the time reading, playing with her cats, and dreading her best friend’s New Year’s Eve party. A lost traveller arriving on her doorstep changes her perception…

**Word Count:** 2909

**=====**

**Six Degrees of Separation**

_“Please Belle, you can’t come to the New Year’s party without a date again! The invitation specifically says plus one!”_ Ariel moaned. _“Who else are you going to kiss at midnight?”_

Unseen by her friend on the other end of the phone, Belle rolled her eyes as she dug her spoon into the large tub of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream balanced on her chest.

“I’m sure I can kiss you, if you’re that desperate for me to kiss someone,” she said, licking the spoon and looking longingly over at the TV screen. It was four days before Christmas and she’d been looking forward to her traditional pre-Christmas night in with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and _Love Actually_ on DVD, but then just at the point when Colin Firth had jumped into the lake after his housekeeper, Ariel had called, and her plans had been scuppered. She and Ariel had been friends since college and it was now tradition for Ariel to invite Belle to her father’s extravagant New Year’s Eve party in Boston, but truth be told, Belle was not looking forward to the event at all, and she was looking forward to Ariel’s attempts to pair her up with eligible bachelors even less. She wondered if she could revoke her RSVP at this late stage. There would be enough people at the party; surely one person’s worth of champagne and canapes would hardly make a difference.

_“You know that there are a load of really great guys here in Boston, more than in Storybrooke at any rate. They’re all dying to meet you,”_ Ariel wheedled. _“I’ve told them all kinds of good things about you and I can set you up on a bunch of blind dates when you get here. You know how good I am at matchmaking.”_

The ice cream splattered on the floor as Belle sat bolt upright.

“Ariel, you are terrible at matchmaking. The last time you sent me on a blind date I had to hit the guy around the head with my purse when he tried to get some in the alley behind the bar.”

_“Ok, so Keith was a mistake,”_ Ariel admitted. _“But if you aren’t careful you’re going to end up being one of those strange old ladies with a flat full of cats that are only going to eat you when you die.”_

“Ariel, I am not an old cat lady!” Belle exclaimed, shooing Tess and Lachlan away when they came over to lick up the spilt ice cream.

_“How many have you got now?”_ Ariel asked.

“Well, little Joseph was looking so soggy and forlorn on the library doorstep…”

_“Belle…”_

“Fine, I have four, one of which is pregnant.”

_“You see! More cats than you know what to do with! Now, surely you can come over a couple of days early and meet a few of these gorgeous fellows?”_

“You’re making it sound worryingly like speed-dating,” Belle remarked dryly. “Besides, Claire’s going to have her babies any minute.”

_“All right, all right, I know I can’t persuade you to leave the kittens any sooner than you have to, but you are still coming for New Year, right?”_

Belle sighed.

“Yes, I am.”

Mulan from upstairs had promised to petsit whilst she was away, and had very graciously not batted an eyelid when she found that Belle’s three cats had become four cats and an undetermined number of cats-to-be.

_“Excellent! I’ll see you on the 30 th then and we can go for a spa day before the big party. I’m so excited!”_

Belle wished that she could say the same as she and Ariel said their goodbyes and she went to clean up the ice cream before the cats could make a surreptitious return to it. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy New Year’s parties, it was just the pomp and grandeur that went with Ariel’s father’s celebration…

It was at that point that the lights went out, and Belle sighed. Considering the force with which the snow was coming down outside, she wasn’t exactly surprised that it had taken the power out; indeed the town council had warned that power outages were likely and had made sure that the very old were well-stocked with candles, flashlights, blankets and ricketty battery-powered space heaters in case of such an emergency. All the same, it was still a nuisance, and it would be a very miserable Christmas indeed if there were no lights twinkling on the tree. At least she had a gas cooker and wouldn’t be completely bereft of tea and coffee, and if there was one advantage to being a cat mother, it was that she was always guaranteed something warm and purring keeping her toes snug at the end of her bed.

She blundered about the flat for a while trying to find her flashlight by the light of her dying phone, grabbing it and several candles out of the hall closet and setting up on the sofa for the rest of the evening. She had enough candles to be able to see her book and her flashlight could stand on end and double as a lantern. The lack of light wasn’t too much of an inconvenience to her plans, but it might be a problem if Claire decided to have the kittens tonight. Still, she could pull through. She’d managed when the library got flooded, after all, even if she’d been using a system of stepladders and playing ‘the floor is lava’ for about a week afterwards whilst the stagnant rainwater got pumped out. As much as she missed the apartment above the library though, she was grateful that she wasn’t there tonight; the place had been draughty beyond belief and the electric heating had barely worked even when the streetlights outside were at full power. Belle glanced out of the window at the blizzard outside. The power would be out again until morning at least, probably; no-one would be able to get out to the substation in this storm. No-one would be out at all if they had any sense.

A knock on her apartment door - a somewhat urgent knock, which was entirely understandable given the conditions - forced her to re-evaluate that theory, and her brow furrowed. She supposed that it might be Mulan, come from upstairs to check if Belle’s power was also out, but Belle knew that Mulan was a sensible sort and if she’d just looked out of the window at the storm, she’d have her answer. Also, Mulan could just have called her without leaving the warmth and safety of her own apartment.

The knock came again, with more urgency this time, and Belle swung her legs up off the sofa, piling up the blankets there much to Lachlan’s consternation as he ended up buried beneath the plush. Padding through the flat in her pyjamas and fluffy dressing gown, Belle sincerely hoped that whoever was outside was someone she knew who would not judge her attire.

Her wish was not answered.

The man standing outside her door was resembling a small, cane-bearing snowman, the white flakes dripping off his black wool coat and puddling on the doormat as they melted. Belle had never seen him before in her life, and for a moment, all she could do was blink. It looked as if the man was as surprised to see her as she was him, but he recovered himself quickly.

“You must be Emma,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

Belle shook her head.

“No, sorry, I’m Belle.”

“Oh.” The man was once more wrong-footed by this information and Belle felt slightly sorry for him.

“Do you want to come in?” she asked, waving him inside the apartment, but he just hovered in the doorway.

“Neal did tell you I was coming, yes?” he hedged.

Belle shook her head.

“I’m very sorry, Mr…”

“Gold,” the man supplied. “Neal uses his mother’s maiden name.”

“Mr Gold,” Belle continued. “But I think you’ve got the wrong address.”

“Oh.” Mr Gold looked down at the piece of paper in his hand, the ink blurred from snow drops, and in that moment, Belle knew what had happened, cursing her Christmas-numbed brain for not picking up on it sooner.

“You’re Neal Cassidy’s father, aren’t you?” she said.

The man nodded.

“He and Emma live two streets over,” Belle said, waving in the direction of the Sheriff’s station.

“Ah, I see. I do apologise for this misunderstanding, Miss…”

“French. Belle French.”

“I’m very sorry for disturbing your evening. I’ll leave you alone now.”

He turned to leave but Belle caught his arm.

“You’ve seen the snowstorm out there,” she said. “You can’t possibly go out in that. Please, wait here until it eases up a bit.”

“Miss French, I…”

“You can call Neal and let him know where you are,” Belle reasoned. “I know him, and he knows I won’t have kidnapped you.”

The words made him smile, and he nodded, stepping into the apartment. Belle closed the door behind him, glad that the cold of the corridor was back outside where it belonged.

“The power’s off at the moment but I’ve got gas, would you like a hot drink to warm you up?”

“That would be most obliging, Miss French. Thank you.”

“Make yourself at home.”

Belle set about making coffee; she was running out of her favourite Christmas blend tea and although Mr Gold looked like a man who would appreciate the finer points of tea, she did not yet know him well enough to start sharing her tea leaves when she might be snowed in for the foreseeable future.

Although, Belle reasoned, a propos of nothing, being snowed in would give her an excellent excuse not to go to Ariel’s New Year’s party.

There was an exclamation of alarm from the living room and Belle rushed back through bearing two coffee cups. Gold was standing staring at the easy chair, which he had evidently just tried to sit down in, only to find that there was a cat snuggled beneath the cushions, a cat that was now regarding him with the utmost disdain.

“Sorry, I should have warned you. That’s Claire’s nest, she won’t budge from it. Here, come on the sofa.”

She quickly put down the cups on a stack of Dickens novels and scooped Lachlan off the sofa before another cat suffered the indignity of being nearly sat upon, and Gold seated himself gingerly.

“Thank you for the coffee,” he said, but it sounded as though he was reserving judgement, having evidently found himself in the home of a mad cat lady. Maybe Ariel was right. “You’re a cat person, I see.”

Belle settled on the sofa next to him and nodded. “Yes, I am. There are two others hiding away somewhere.”

Gold’s eyebrows shot to his hairline for a moment and Belle hid a smile in her coffee.

“You’re not a cat person, I take it.”

Gold shook his head, looking rather worried when Tess jumped up onto his lap and, after padding around a bit kneading his knees, curled up without so much as a by your leave. Seeing that Tess now had a comfortable human cushion, Lachlan plonked himself down at Belle’s feet and meowed loudly, demanding equal treatment to his adopted sister, especially as the interloper had taken his place on the sofa. Belle rolled her eyes and pulled the tabby onto her lap, where he began purring like a foghorn.

“So, I take it that you’re visiting Neal and Emma for Christmas,” Belle said, by way of a conversation starter. Gold nodded.

“Yes. It’s the first time I’ve been invited. Neal and I haven’t always got on very well.” He paused. “Still, Christmas is a time for building bridges.”

Belle nodded. “Yes, that’s true. Where are you based normally? Neal doesn’t really speak about his family much.”

“I live in Boston, but my company is actually based in Glasgow, so I travel there a lot.”

“Are you going there for Hogmanay?” Belle asked. Gold shook his head with a smile.

“No, I’ve no family there now, but my aunts’ parties used to be the stuff of legend.”

Belle’s mind came full circle to Ariel and her legendary New Year’s party.

“I’m going to a New Year’s party in Boston,” she mused.

“Really?”

She nodded grimly. “Yeah. Well, I’ve said I’m going. I’m not sure I will.”

Gold looked out towards the storm. “Yes, I can’t see all this suddenly melting and making travel any easier between now and the thirty-first.”

Belle sighed. “It’s not that. It’s just that it’s a corporate party. Really fancy. I’ve been invited as the company director’s daughter’s best college friend. I went last year and I hated it, didn’t know a soul and everyone kept commenting that I was single, and my friend’s aunt and her wife kept trying to set me up with wildly unsuitable men. But Ariel really wants me to go to keep her company, and I hate to let her down.”

“Ariel?” Gold’s face was sharp and focussed in the candlelight.

Belle nodded.

“This party wouldn’t happen to be hosted by Triton Del Mar, would it? Owner of the Del Mar Group?”

Belle gave another slow nod.

“Yes. I was at college in Boston with Ariel Del Mar.” She paused. “How do you know them?”

“Well, put it this way. If you go, there will be one soul other than Miss Del Mar that you know.”

Belle almost dropped her coffee, and Lachlan yowled at the sudden movement.

“You’re going to be there?”

“Yes. My company has provided logistics services for Del Mar’s Luxury Goods department for years.” He gave a soft snort. “I’m sure Neal’s never told you that he owns shares in Del Mar.”

Belle shook her head violently.

“I can’t say I’m surprised, he never did like associating himself with anything I do. But if you do decide to go, I can promise to do my utmost to prevent Ursula and Ella from attempting to matchmake. I’ve fallen prey to their machinations before and before January was out, that little adventure had resulted in a restraining order against the marketing director of WOZ Corp.”

“I read about that online!” Belle exclaimed. “That was you?”

Gold nodded.

“No wonder Neal got so indignant when we were talking about it.” She paused. “I run the library, Neal’s a regular patron,” she added. “We’re just friends.”

“Whilst I’ll admit to being slightly thrown by your appearance at the door when I was expecting a tall blonde, as Emma was described to me, I am completely convinced of your benignity,” Gold said, bowing his head. “Storybrooke’s a small town. It makes sense that everyone knows everyone else.”

Evidently not well enough to know that one of her best friends’ father was head of a multi-national shipping company and was in cahoots with Triton and Ursula Del Mar.

Gold glanced over at the window. The wind had died down and the snow had eased off.

“I think I had better make a move,” he said. “I want to try and get there before midnight.” He looked down at the sleeping cat on his lap. “Although I can foresee a challenge in that.”

Belle laughed. “Tess has claimed you now. You can never leave.”

All the same, she leaned over and gently woke the white cat, distracting her with a length of ribbon left over from present wrapping and getting her to jump off Gold’s lap. He gave her a grateful smile and went to retrieve his coat, giving another squawk of alarm when he found the fourth cat hiding in its folds. Joseph, all black but for a white patch on his neck that made him look quaintly like a vicar, mewed pitifully and nudged Gold’s ankle with his forehead.

Gold just rolled his eyes.

“I do hope you weren’t planning to bring the cats to the party?” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think little Joseph down there could be the perfect date. Ariel keeps pestering me to bring a plus one.”

“I’d pay good money to see you arrive with Joseph on your arm.”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “Is that a dare?”

“Possibly.”

“Because Ariel Del Mar will tell you that I am the queen of Truth or Dare.”

Gold just shook his head. “I think it’s probably best if I don’t venture further down that slippery slope. Thank you very much for the coffee, Miss French. And… I’ll see you at the party?”

Belle nodded. “Oh, I couldn’t miss it now,” she said. “I’ll have to get Joseph a little bow tie.”

“I’m sure he will look very dashing,” Gold said solemnly.

“I’m sure you’ll look very dashing too,” Belle countered. She wasn’t quite sure where that had come from. He was her friend’s dad, for crying out loud!

Still… what happened in Boston, stayed in Boston…

“I’ll see you in two weeks then, Miss French.”

“Happy Christmas, Mr Gold.”

“And to you, Miss French.”

As she closed the door after him, the lights came back on, and Belle grinned to herself, picking Joseph up off the floor and dancing around the room with him, much to his meowing protest.

For the first time, the prospect of the New Year’s party was actually an exciting one.

Who knew? Maybe she’d have someone to kiss at midnight after all.


End file.
